For example, some days, Jackman thought he was riding in an old pasture where the ground was "well covered with dung but the fence is missing."

A lack of trees meant dried buffalo dung (chips) was used in most fires.

Bashore believes, though, that some young people enjoyed the adventure and camping out along the trail.

Despite the negatives, the Mormon pioneers — unlike most other travelers — were thoughtful of those to follow, and they repaired roads and creek bridges.

Even some non-Mormon accounts of the pioneer trek into Salt Lake Valley seem inspiring:

"Before us, the mountains grow lower, and a lovely valley relieves the sight in the south west," the diary of Kathleen B. Waite, a non-Mormon who entered the valley in 1862 with a Mormon group, recorded.

"This is our first glimpse of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake," the account continues. "Here on the summit of 'big mountain, the mormon emigrants fall on their knees and pray; some shout hosannas and hallelujahs; many weep; husbands kiss their wives, and parents their children in their joy, and the very faithful declare that they feel the Spirit of God pervading the atmosphere and enthusiastically believe all their toils fully repaid, for they have at length come home, where the 'wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.

"We felt almost as happy as the mormons, to know that our long and perilous journey was at an end and that only eighteen miles now separated us from rest and society … we cross another mountain ridge, and descend into a most delightfully picturesque gorge, the 'Emigration Canon.' Admiring the beauties of its rocky heights, the slopes covered with shrubbery and painted in all sorts of rich colors, as though a rainbow had been wrecked on the hillside, we turn an abrupt point and the sight that greets our eyes, is indeed beautiful," the account said.

Bashore's research also found that pioneer camp life was extremely busy.

"I never saw so busy a thing as in traveling with the Camp — there was hardly ever a minute to spare to read, write or even to pray," Esaias Edwards, another pioneer, wrote. "The hurding and guarding togather with my daily tasks, kept me beat down and and wore out all the time. The women were as well … beat down as the men. … Sundays were scercely a day or rest, nor could it be if we traveled on Monday."

Brigham Young urged the pioneers to be patient and long-suffering. Brigham was like a father, a modern day Moses or Abraham to the pioneers, and they felt safe and secure with him nearby.